The adults in the room (again, with the exception of Miss Vaux) all give Scyelen mildly stern glances.

"Miss Vallière," Osmond says, "do you require a second room?"

"I, um," she stammers. She gives Raafi a betrayed, pleading look.

Sigh. "Sweetheart, trust me on this one?"

"It would appear that I do require a second room to house my familiar, Headmaster."

"Hmph. In such an extraordinary situation, I believe special accomodations can be arranged this once. But I'll remind you not to expect further special treatment, Miss Vallière. We will be sending your updated tuition figures to your family's estate."

(Scyelen nods solemnly.)

"Thank you." He puts an arm around her shoulders. "Is there anything else?"

She shudders, but doesn't pull away from his touch.

There isn't anything else.

The Headmaster dismisses them, and Scyelen morosely leads the way out, then starts plodding back down the stairs.

Raafi follows. "Hey. -how long do we have before your next class, I think we should talk."

"Hm? Oh, we have the rest of the day free. We're supposed to... spend the time getting to know our familiars. So."

"Good, we need it." He walks on a little ways. "Tell me what you think just happened back there?"

The morning is bright and the weather is nice.

The lawn outside the tower is decorated with several open-air pavilions, picnic settings, and patio furniture. Scyelen's entire class is out and about playing with or fawning over their familiars.

"You... spoke for me," Scyelen finally says, hedging because she doesn't want to be confrontational. "And said something... I wouldn't have."

He nods. "I'm here to protect you and I'm going to do that, when I think it's necessary. It shouldn't be often. And - gods, this place - I don't think I'd make it a month without the room. There's too much else going on. I'm not going to stop spending time with you but I need that much to myself."

Scyelen nods morosely.

"I'm sorry I'm so bad at this."

She stops at a set of patio chairs and plops down in one.

He takes the one next to it, more gracefully. "I think you're in a really tough position through no fault of your own and doing the best you can with it." He reaches over to pat her arm again. "And hopefully things will get better now but that doesn't mean the tough times didn't happen, or didn't affect anything. Be patient with yourself, okay?"

Scyelen stares at his hand on her arm for a long moment. He humiliated her in front of her headmaster and her favorite teacher. She should be upset with him. Why does that make his touch feel nicer.

She closes her eyes, a pained grimace crossing her face for half a moment, then she looks at him.

"What did you want to talk about?

"This, partly. Your education. What we're telling your parents; I assume we should be sending them a letter, since the school is and who knows what they're going to tell them in it. Anything else you wanted to discuss."

"The academy will inform them, of course. I've kind of stopped writing home, though. Nothing good to say. My education... apparently depends on rediscovering lost holy secrets and egregious heresy."

"Well, you have something good to say now. You understand that this whole thing has been the academy's fault, right? They don't know how to teach someone with your magic, and when they tried anyway and it didn't work they blamed you and left you to be harassed by your classmates instead of doing anything reasonable about it."

"You still don't really understand, do you. My very existence is a question we're not allowed to ask. Our magic was a gift from Founder Brimir, but he kept the Void for himself. So how could I possibly have it?"

"Maybe he didn't. Maybe he did and then changed his mind, or he thought he did and it didn't work as well as he was expecting. Maybe he did, and you'll never be able to do magic but at least now you know why. Maybe something stranger is going on. In any case, whatever kind of failure you thought you were, you aren't, and we know it. I'd expect that to matter, at least."

"I'm... never going to belong."

"But... yes, it does matter. I just... I guess I don't really believe it yet."

Meanwhile a short distance across the lawn, that blonde boy from the other night is flirting over tea with a girl who is definitely not the girl from the other night. The maid Siesta picks something up off the ground and approaches the boy. The boy appears to get angry. Siesta flinches away.

And then the girl who was with him in the halls shows up. She and other girl get in a shouting match. Then both of them slap the blonde boy and walk away. The blonde boy rounds angrily on the maid, brandishing his wand.

"Sometimes that happens, people not belonging. It's not the end of the world. You'll - hold on." He chants, and disappears from the chair to impose himself between the boy and the maid, walking stick held in a quarterstaff's hold. "What's going on here?"

The boy yelps, startled. "F-Fast."

He quickly regains his stride, though. "Nothing of concern to you, my foreign friend! I merely intend to discipline the help for the terrible crime of making two lovely ladies cry!"